Murther & Walking Spirits

A Novel

Anthony Burgess listed Davies' The Rebel Angels among the 99 best novels of our time and declared that Davies himself is "without doubt Nobel Prize material". In this unusual novel, Davies' protagonist is murdered in the first sentence of the book, but he lingers as a ghost to view the exploits of his ancestors, from the American Revolution to the present.

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This was my second Davies book and certainly a radical departure from Fifth Business! Cleverly, he tells the story in the first person, starting with his own death. Observing events as a ghost enables him to spy on the other protagonists' most private behavior and frees him of any restrictions with regard to time or space; he proceeds to cover past, present and future events as he sees fit, making a sardonic romp of it all.
Crafty fellow, Davies!